Posted on 12/23/2006 5:15:33 PM PST by Dallas59
BANGKOK (AFP) - "I could not find anybody in the States. There was nothing in America for me. That's why I'm here," says the clean-cut 52-year-old bachelor, who bears a passing resemblance to Hollywood actor Michael Douglas.
Sullivan, an emergency nurse from Florida, is one of a growing number of foreign men seeking young and beautiful Thai brides via the Internet.
Speaking at the Bangkok office of Sweet Singles, a Thai bride-by-Internet company, Sullivan says he has decided to "go beyond boundaries" in his search for a wife after a futile quest in the United States.
"American women in my age are, basically, a wreck. They are physically and emotionally beaten up from relationships and life. They are untrusting," says the well-built Sullivan, sporting a pink shirt and white pants.
"I think the feminist movement in America in the 60s really trashed American feminism. American women lack a certain femininity about them that women of other countries have," he laughs.
Sullivan contacted Sweet Singles six months ago and was introduced to Yoshita Tongsalee, an attractive 27-year-old teacher of traditional Thai dancing.
After corresponding with her via e-mails for three weeks, Sullivan decided to meet her and flew to Bangkok in early December.
"Just from e-mails, I knew she was the one. I just knew," says the American, his emerald earring dazzling.
"I find Thai women in general to be less self-centered and more family-centered than I find in western women," he says. The couple plans to marry next year.
John, a 43-year-old Briton who got married to a Thai woman four years ago via an Internet bride agency, also has grievances about western women.
"English women are very demanding and they expect you to be good-looking and have plenty of money and give them lots of attention. They drink a lot and they smoke a lot and they eat a lot," says John, who declined to give his last name.
"I am not very good at getting women anyway. I'm not the best-looking guy in the world. I'm quite short and it's very hard for me to find an English woman who is shorter than me," he says on the telephone from London.
Before marrying his Thai bride, John dated six British women, but his relationships with them were anything but happy.
"I'm just fed up with British women. They are not so loyal," he says.
When he met six Thai ladies in Bangkok via the Internet, including a 32-year-old business woman who later became his wife, John says he was struck by their kindness and family-centered values.
"I think Thai women are more loyal to their husbands. They are not just 'take, take take.' Also they have old-fashioned family values, which we used to have in this country," he says. John and his wife now have two young boys.
John and Marc declined to say how much they paid to get their Thai wives. Sweet Singles says it can charge a foreign man up to 1,700 dollars for a three-year membership to meet Thai ladies.
Some 10,000 foreign men have signed up with Sweet Singles over the last decade, and nearly half of them were previously divorced, says Bee, the company's customer service manager.
Some 80 percent of them get married to Thai women through the agency.
Americans account for 60 percent of the company's male clients, with the rest mostly from Australia, Britain, Germany and Scandinavian countries. Their average age ranges from 55 to 60.
Some 20,000 Thai women have also joined Sweet Singles, with their ages ranging from 20 to 40. The company charges a Thai woman 700 baht (20 dollars) for membership.
Bee, a petite 40-something, says Thai woman often have a favorable impression of foreigners.
"Many Thai girls were disappointed by Thai men who are famous for womanizing, drinking and gambling. Thai woman believe Caucasian men are more responsible and sincere and not playing around with other women," she says.
Thanitchaya Buaban, a striking 26-year-old beauty from Thailand's northern tourist spot of Chiang Mai, says she used to have a Thai boyfriend but he cheated on her many times.
"I was heart-broken. After I joined Sweet Singles, I started meeting foreigners and they were very kind and polite," she says at the firm's office.
Thanitchaya says she now has many American suitors who are trying to win her love with diamond rings and necklaces.
"I'm going to choose the best one," she says with a big smile.
For Sullivan's fiancee Yoshita, her experiences with Thai men were more traumatic.
"I was planning to marry my first Thai boyfriend, but he did not show up on our wedding day. He embarrassed me and my family," Yoshita says. "My second boyfriend cheated on me and impregnated another woman."
But Yoshita, who wears a golden heart necklace, says she is looking forward to living in Florida with the man of her dreams -- even if she still refers to him by his last name.
"I believe Mr Sullivan is a gift from God. He is really a good man and respects me. Every day I pray and thank Buddha for giving me Mr Sullivan," she says.
Sullivan nodded and held her hand.
"I have to step outside my own culture to find someone with whom I am compatible. I am not narrow-minded in that regard," he smiles.
My yuppie town is full of 40 ex-trophy discards. It's almost as sad as that joke page of Mail-Order available hunks that someone posted. They become bitter and hateful, but I cannot really blame them, because one day the whole script collapses when it is brutally revealed to them the real basis of their former marriage.
The men that did it resemble the ones on the joke page, except that they are now too impoverished to get newer replacement models.
The schism between men and women is as deep now as the one between Democrats and Republicans, seemingly without any hope of truce or tolerance.
Were I single in this generation, I would either go offshore, into a monastery, or throw myself under a train.
The women in my life who are friends all have some damage. They walk around with a lot of pain, but these few have not been turned bitter and hateful, which is why I do respect them so much. My male friends show the same symptoms, but because of the court system bias, are more bitter and angry.
That is why I hold so much contempt for the Media Gay Marriage Non-issue: So many people cannot get the mainstream version right in the first place and now we have to redefine relationships into Fairy Tales.
Some states are even reexamining the bestiality laws, so ones Dream Date does not even have to be human-Giving the term "Animal Husbandry" a new meaning.
Sometimes, in secret, I think that my long marriage is not a good thing, because "Forty years at ANYTHING (My career, for example) is just too damned long". Then reality hits, I see what is going on out there, and am grateful I don't have to play.
I don't think anyone is complaining about American women 33 years ago. They're complaining about American women today. While you are to be congratulated for your long and successful relationship (felicitations!), that same relationship has removed you from the group best-positioned to comment on marriageable American women and most-impacted by the same. If your marriage ended today and you had to start over with a new woman, what would you find? That's the issue here.
The early focus on one man's pink shirt and the derogation of a 27-year-old woman as a "child bride" is pretty shrill, though.
It's almost as if someone wanted to prove the guy's point!
You're right, I'm removed from the scene. I do have a 24 year old daughter, though.
FWIW, if there is a problem with American women being too whatever they are, I'm inclined to give some of the blame to our puritanism. The parallels between puritanism and political correctness are too obvious for them to be just coincidence. IMO.
I was told that I wasn't wired for 2-20
I think that Cammie must be somebody's ex-wife, and I've got a suspicion of why that is.
Here's a hypothetical question for you: if a group of Thai businessmen were to visit America looking for potential wives, how high or low on their list of candidates do you think Cammie would be, just based on her postings in THIS thread?
Heh. Yeah, that's what I thought too.
Merry Christmas!
A woman who tries hard to keep her man happy will usually discover that he reciprocates. A woman who keeps her man unhappy will discover he has no motivation to keep her happy
Considering that it never was a holiday chat threat, that's not surprising
I'd rather not (meet you).
In many cases, it's an exchange. Sex for immigration into the USA. If the guy is lucky, he imports a keeper who will keep her promises and not seek a handsomer, richer man. If the guy is not lucky, well, we only hear about that when there is a murder trial.
Kinda funny. There is a gay bar a block away from the biker bar I frequent. All the gay guys are clean shaven, wear dockers, loafers and pressed shirts. They're usually not pierced, and if they are it's a dainty little diamond stud.
All the bikers and truly masculine guys I know are pierced and tatted. Different worlds I guess. For the record, I have stainless steel 12g hoops in my ears. Two in each ear.
I was not talking about your treatment of the men on this thread. I was talking about your ad hominem attack of the guy who was the subject of the article.
You know nothing about him except what was written, but you used that minimal information to project onto him your vile template of the men you hate. You revealed your true inner core.
LOL!
That is exactly what prompted my first question to cammie (post 9) which started this whole crazy thing. You stated the problem with her reactionary response much better than I did.
Merry Christmas!
What?
*ouch* Excellent comeback...
I'm open to the possibility...
Yeah, I posted something like this in relation to my Vietnamese girlfriend a couple years ago. Napalm has nothing in relation to the heat I got here.
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS;
Thailand, one of the world's prostitute warehouses.
He may have been eating popcorn while enjoying the show that this thread has become.
Referring to the men, the article says, "Their average age ranges from 55 to 60." This seems typical of other summaries I've seen of the overseas bride deal. The reason they're so jaded with American women, in my opinion, is that they just can't seem to find young, beautiful and compliant women to do the bidding of some fading old fart, waiting on them hand and foot, worshipping them in general, and satisfying their prurient desires on demand. The whole business of a bunch of geezers going overseas to buy slaves for their personal and fading sex lives is creepy. And, as a one time Immigration Agent, I'm too familiar with how many of these matings end up in simple green card blackmail schemes by the American.
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